


When the Dust Settles, That's When It Hits You

by Indus



Series: Reaching Rock Bottom- Only One Way to Go [1]
Category: Captain America (2011), Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indus/pseuds/Indus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Marvel's Avengers- the reactions we didn't get. Because it's easy not to feel when there's work to be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tony, Natasha and Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't read this if you haven't seen the Avengers and don't want to be spoiled! Otherwise, it's the story of what we didn't see.  
> And then I depressed myself, and became determined to fix it.
> 
> Beta: The awesome Jasmina22... Thank you so much!
> 
> One use of offensive language in the second part.

*

"Oh my God, Tony!" Pepper's voice brought a smile to his face, and a little pinch of the heart. He had never been in this position before. And he never wanted to be there again.

"Pepper, listen-"

Pepper interrupted him, tears obvious in her voice, "I missed your call, I'm so sorry! But it was on vibrate, and I was in the plane, watching the news, what was going on in Manhattan. I was so worried when I saw the missed call- I couldn't think why you'd call in the _middle_  of a battle unless... Oh God, I tried to call Phil-"

" _Pepper."_ He didn't raise his voice, but there was something in it that stopped her. She'd thought she'd heard every tone of his voice, from the hard bite when he talked about his father, to the smooth seductiveness he used with his girlfriends, and now, so very recently, the softness with her. But this, this was new. "Phil Coulson's dead."

Silence.

"Did you hear me?"

She swallowed audibly, and then said the stupidest thing she could have said, but the only thing she could think of to say. "Are you sure?" Then, before he could speak, "Don't, don't answer that. I know you wouldn't call me if you weren't."

They were both quiet for a couple of minutes and then, when they spoke, it was about other things such as the level of devastation in the city, the damage to the suit, and when they would meet. Too soon, there was nothing left, and a loud, devastated silence. "I have to go now," Tony said finally.

Pepper nodded, then, "See you soon." She disconnected the phone and spared a second for the cellist. But grief is selfish, and she needed to indulge in a little selfishness of her own. Until Stane, she'd never known anyone to die of anything but old age, or sickness, and had never known a shocking moment of seeing someone she liked _alive_ and healthy, and then found out they'd died the next day. And truthfully, she'd always thought that if it would be anyone, it would be wonderful, insane Tony, not logical, sweet Phil. It had just been one short day, and someone she cared for, a friend who had come and helped her during two of the most terrifying moments of her life, was gone.

"Oh Phil." She looked up at the sun, letting the light and grief bring tears to her eyes. She thought of the man Tony had been, how the suit and the man who had saved his life in a war-torn, devastated country had given him purpose, but SHIELD and being part of something else had given him focus. "Thank you. Thank you for saving Tony."

And while her eyes were glassy for a few minutes, she did not let herself cry. It took her almost three months of believing that he was alive, that, like Tony, he would appear out of the desert with a new purpose and spirit, before one day, doing something as mundane as reviewing a personnel file, she suddenly realized he was never coming back. Something broke inside her chest, and then she wept for the friend she had lost.

She should have waited one more day before coming to terms with Coulson's death.

*

"I've been assigned as your handler. And Agent Barton's. And, by extension, SHIELD liaison to the Avengers."

Natasha looked up from the food she'd barely touched. For just one second, the normally inscrutable face she showed the world slipped, and Maria Hill was treated to the small smile that few had seen. Hill _had_ seen it before, and knew that it often hid something quite different from joy. "That was fast."

Hill shrugged. "You know Fury- he's already thinking of the next battle. He wants us to be prepared."

"Prepared for _what_? And what 'Avengers?' It was a one-time thing. I'm pretty sure Banner's halfway to India now, and we all know that he won't stay there for long. He seems to get that Nick Fury isn't going to experiment on the Hulk, but if SHIELD is looking for him-"

Hill ignored her. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"What?"

Hill sat across the table from the Widow, putting down her tray. "Natasha," she said gently. She was the only one allowed to talk to Natasha in that tone of voice, and that privilege had been earned after years of working together, sharing bathrooms and quarters as (usually) the only two women on an Op. "Is this going to be a problem? Your avoidance makes me think it is."

Natasha scoffed. "When did you get your shrink's license? I've lost handlers before, I'll lose them again." Then, quirking her lips, "Sorry, too blunt?"

"No," Hill answered, narrowing her eyes. "I know the risk. He did too."

"Yes he did. He knew the risk when he took the job, when he came here. He even knew the risk when he went to confront Loki alone, while I tried to avoid the Hulk's stampede or beat up Barton, Thor played at being in a fishbowl, and the rest of you kept this stupid ship in the air. But you know what? That's cold comfort. He's still the best handler I've ever had. I wouldn't be here if he hadn't let Barton bring me, and argued with Fury for me. And -"

"Shut up."

"What?"

"Shut up. You think I need to have his praises sung to me? He was a friend, and more than that, he was _my_  handler too once upon a time. He taught me everything I need to know about my job, and a lot more that I kind of wish I didn't know. But this is a job, and it's a risky one, and he was doing it when he confronted that fucking alien with identity issues. And it's a measure of his character that he did it well enough to train some of the best agents in the business, while inspiring the kind of loyalty and affection that has this entire ship reeling from his loss."

Natasha was silent in the face of Hill's diatribe. The brunette lost steam suddenly, and wiped a tired, shaky hand over her face. "God, Tasha, I'm sorry. I know this won't be easy. I'm not expecting to fill his shoes; they're big shoes to fill. I'll find my own space, and I hope you'll help me find it. And if you think this is easy for me, you're wrong. I hoped I'd be a lot older when it came to this, and that I'd still be able to call him up on a phone to ask if he had any tips to deal with Stark's latest escapade."

"This isn't what I wanted, or how I wanted it. But it's what is."

"' _It is what is._ ' That's true enough, and appeals to the Russian in me." Natasha finally looked her in the eye. "It's going to hurt. I wish it would just be Fury for a while, because you'll be a constant reminder of what we've lost. But as you said, this is our job. Don't worry, I can do it. And if the circumstances were different, I'd say I'm _honored_ to be serving under you."

Hill smiled slightly, ignoring the odd glances from other tables. It was a well-known fact that when Romanov and Hill smiled, heads would roll. "That's all I ask." She stood up, gathering the food she'd barely touched.

"Oh, and Agent Hill?" Natasha added, stopping Hill in her tracks. "Don't think I don't know why you're telling me first. I'll do it for you, break it to him, but you should know- he won't take it much easier, or make your life any less a living hell."

Hill smiled slightly and walked out of the mess with her customary confidence. Behind her, Natasha sat, silent and alone. No one, looking at her, had the slightest idea where her thoughts had taken her, even when her cutlery snapped between her fingers. Silent and alone- that was how the Black Widow grieved.

*

Bruce Banner pulled his hood a little lower over his face. He stared at the reflection of his surroundings and, when nothing stood out, opened the door. He saw her immediately, and could not stop the smile from taking over his face.

She must have been watching the door. Answering his smile, she stood up. They hugged, awkwardly. "You look good," she whispered.

That wasn't true. The passage of time had been much kinder to her than it had been to him. He was still handsome, and no one would call him old, but no one in the cafe would have believed that they had been at college and graduate school at the same time, that only two years separated them. "I am good," he said, and it was not a lie. "I don't think I've been better for a while."

"Are you going to stay?"

"No, I'm heading back to- I'm heading out tomorrow."

She put down the hand she'd raised to silence him. "Don't say it. Don't say where. I'm sure I dodged my tail and I'm certain you did too. But I don't want to assume he's not listening." What a strange world it was, she thought suddenly, when she trembled with fear at the thought of what her father would do, how far he would go, to get the man she loved. "Just get a message to me when you get there."

They stayed silent for a few minutes, and then she finally asked the question that had been bothering her for some time. "Why did you come back? And to a military facility- Bruce, you've been running from this for so long."

"It's not- it's not the same," he muttered, looking away. "They wanted me for _me_ , not the big guy. It's been a long time since anyone's wanted me for me, you know?"

She took his hand, smiling faintly. "I want you for you, you know." It wasn't a question, just a quiet statement by the one person in the world who could look at the Hulk and only see Bruce.

"Oh Betty," he smiled tremulously. "I love you for that, you know? But except for you, there was no one... and then I was of use, and with a team. I've never been part of a team like this, where my skills, and the other guy's skills, are of use. And then we lost Coulson-"

"Coulson?"

He shrugged. "You won't see his name on any reports, but he was a good man, and he took on the enemy and lost. But he tried. He didn't have the crazy Hulk powers I do, the suit, or even the super-strength of the rest of us, but he tried. For the sake of the world. How could I do any less?"

Betty Ross looked into his eyes for a long moment. She was a soldier's daughter, no stranger to the way that loss brought soldiers together, how the death of one of them bonded soldiers together like nothing else. "When did he die?"

"Before the battle for Manhattan started, but I didn't find out until afterwards. I came back to New York to fight as part of this one battle, I told Tony Stark that I would be back in the future because of Coulson. I found myself wondering if I had anything worth dying for. I love you, you know I do, but I spend my life trying to help people in the little ways when I know I can do more, bigger things. All that stops me is fear of what I can do, but with these people, who have learned how to control and aim the Hulk, that fear isn't enough to stop me anymore. If a man armed with an untested gun can go up against a magical alien God and tell him with his dying breath that he will lose, I have no excuse. None."

"And don't smile like that. I know, I know, you've been telling me all the while that the Hulk is not a mindless monster, that he can do good." He mock-frowned at her, before suddenly becoming serious. "I just wish things could be different between us."

"Why can't they?" she pleaded. "If they want you for you, and you trust this team of yours, these Avengers, why can't I be a part of your life?"

"You are a part of my life," he promised, taking her hand to his lips and kissing it. "The best and brightest, don't you _ever_  doubt that. But I don't completely trust SHIELD, and I know that they're not above using me as a weapon in wars I won't fight. It's different when it's aliens enslaving the world, and a totally different situation when they want me to fight poor people in a foreign country because of the actions of a few people, or because they happen to live on something we want. I won't do that, and I won't let the other guy become a hired gun for anyone who wants it. I need an out, Betty. I need someone to help me, somewhere I can go, where they're not looking."

She shook her head. "I won't be that forever. I get what you're saying, and I'm fine with that for a while, but once you become more comfortable, once you and the people you _do_ trust figure something out, I'm coming to be with you. You need something worth living for just as much as you need something worth dying for, Bruce."

He held her hand to his face and, unable to look her in the eye, nodded. She relaxed her shoulders and took a deep breath, letting herself be soothed by the familiar and yearned for feeling of his hand in hers. Then she silently thanked a man she had never met for teaching her lover a lesson she had never thought he would learn. It was ironic- she wanted nothing so much, in that moment, as a chance to meet Phil Coulson so she could thank him in person, but there would be no reason to thank him if he had not died.

Ironic indeed.

*


	2. The Rest, and the Fix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Um, this is where I unbreak my heart.
> 
> Angst and Avengers spoilers, be warned!

"Jane!"

Jane Foster carefully put down the delicate instrument on the table in front of her, and then closed her eyes. Bracing herself, she then turned to face the blond God she had given up all hope of ever seeing again. "Thor!" She did not remember moving, but somehow she was in his arms, and then being twirled around as if she was the girl in your standard romcom. "Thor!" She was not crying; she would deny crying to her dying breath.

Later, much later, when they had loved, and then showered and eaten, because romance only replaced the necessities of life in the aforementioned romantic comedies, she asked Thor about Manhattan. "I saw it on the news, and they didn't have names but I could have sworn I saw you and Erik Selvig at some point- I told myself I was dreaming, but then, you're here..."

"It was Loki," Thor said heavily. He bore the burden of his brother's misdeeds. Loki may deny himself being a son of Asgard, but Thor and the people who had raised him did not see it that way, for better and for worse. "There were- many people died."

"Loki!" Jane gasped, her mind flashing to New Mexico, and that giant robot that had seemed like something out of a science fiction novel. "Was he following you again? Have you been here for some time?" She tried to hide the hurt in her voice, but Thor wasn't fooled.

Holding her hand in his, he explained about how his brother had targeted the world that Thor loved, and Thor had followed him there to stop him from enslaving her planet. "Please, my Jane, believe me when I vow that my first thought was of your safety. Had the son of Coul not assured me that SHIELD had removed you from the-"

Jane pulled her hand out of his and stood up. "SHIELD- SHIELD _removed me_? Oh my God, are you telling me-" she was so angry she couldn't finish her sentences. "That man... he _set me up_? I am going to _kill_ -"

"He is dead." Thor's words stole her voice, and for a few long moments, all that could be heard was Jane's harsh breathing.

She sat down, the world becoming much clearer to her than it had been, even when faced with giant robots. The anger and resentment she had felt disappeared at the realization of what she had missed, what had happened to a man who had, yes, arbitrarily and dictatorially, given her something to do so that she would not be in the way. So that she would not be dead, like he was. She held Thor's hand again, taking comfort in his closeness.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Darcy Lewis burst into the room. "Okay, Jane, I got a good look at the footage we ID'ed last week, this time in English, and it _is-_ Oh my God, Thor!" She ran up to the God and held on to his arms. He had stood up when she entered and now looked down on her with affection. "Just as gorgeous as ever, I see. And me without my taser, pity."

Thor was about to express his gratitude for her oversight when Jane broke-in. "Phil Coulson is dead."

Darcy's flirtatious teasing was immediately derailed. "Dead?" she whispered. "Whoa." It was a little hard to conceive. She had always thought that it was the young and brave, the soldiers who kissed their girls before leaving them behind at docks or, more realistically, airports, who died, not older men who wore suits and talked in their earphones all day. "How?"

"He challenged Loki," Thor admitted. "And did better than I did. But Loki was able to run his staff through him, dealing him a fatal blow that no mortal could hope to recover from. I was watching at the time, but I was trapped and unable to help him."

"You watched him die?" Jane asked, tearing up as she pictured the scene. "Was he- did it hurt?"

Thor shook his head. "He bore his wounds with courage and grace," which was not an answer to the question, but Jane took comfort in it.

Darcy pulled out her phone and checked her messages. "That explains it." Then, looking up, she took in the confusion of her audience and explained, "We text, and I hadn't heard from him for a while. I just thought- with Manhattan and all, he has to be busy, but he usually texts back something short and snarky even when he's in the middle of stuff."

"You text _Coulson_? You _text_ Coulson?!"

"Yes Jane, _I_  text Coulson. After the whole New Mexico thing, I saw him one last time, you weren't there, and I asked him for my ipod. He gave that weird half-smile of his and all of a sudden there's this box in his hand. I swear, there's no way that box could have been hidden in his suit, but where else could it have been? And in it is an ipod with _twice_ the memory of the old one I had. Of course, I gave him hell over the lost songsand videos, and then he offered me a job."

Jane's mouth fell open. "A job?"

Darcy nodded. "I said no, and he gave me a number and told me to call if I changed my mind. I thought it was a joke, and anyway, I like my job, so I didn't call for a few days. So then he texted me this link to one of those dropbox type accounts, and _all_  the songs and videos I had on my ipod are suddenly there. It was like magic, but creepy, stalkery magic. And then we kept texting. About random stuff. He's kind of cool in a weird, I-can-kill-you-with-my-mind-and-get-the-bank-to-foreclose-on-your-house-in-ten-minutes way." Then, soberly, "Was kind of cool, I mean."

Jane leaned over and hugged the younger woman. "Sorry, honey."

Darcy buried her face in Jane's shoulder, and maybe even wiped away a tear before she pulled herself away and began asking about Manhattan. In the days and weeks to come, both women would be busy checking on friends and family, but Darcy listened to some of her favorite songs every night on her ipod, sparing a few seconds to think of the man who gave it to her.

And when, three and a half months later, she received a text about Thor's new fascination with Costco, she was not surprised at all.

*

They never told you that the hardest thing about losing someone was going back to an empty home.

Clint had managed to put it off as long as possible. He'd gone straight from being Loki's mindless minion to saving Manhattan, and then clean-up and Avengers bonding, Stark-style, had kept him on the helicarrier or in Stark Towers for almost three weeks. And for those three weeks he had managed to convince himself that this was just one of those times when he and his lover were scheduled on separate missions.

But it was impossible to lie to himself when he went home, when he collected the cat from his neighbor, who asked him about Phil and joked about Snoopy's new trick of getting on small bedside or coffee tables and knocking everything off in a fit of feline pique. "Though I guess you guys got what you deserved for naming a girl cat Snoopy," the young lawyer laughed.

Clint was not sure, but he believed he said something light in response, or maybe he just told her Phil had died, because she did not stop him when he said goodbye and walked right into his apartment. His apartment, which was in the same condition that he had left it more than a month before, because Phil had a SHIELD-approved house-cleaning service who kept their refrigerator stocked and their home sparkling clean.

Needing a beer, and to feed the cat who was holding his absence against him, as always, Clint headed first to the refrigerator. He opened the door and stared blankly at the Gouda cheese and hummus, Phil's favorite comfort food, while the cat rubbed against his legs.

"Here," Natasha pushed him gently out of the way and grabbed the beer and cat food, handing the alcohol to him while she took care of Snoopy's needs. "I've got this."

He had not even noticed that she was following him home.

He walked into the living room, and stopped, overcome with a pain that was so powerful he wondered if grief could cause a heart attack. There were not that many pictures in the living room, and the few that they allowed to be displayed of the two of them were hardly enough to bring about such a reaction. No, it was the couch, where he could almost but not quite see Phil lying down, head in Clint's lap and watching some trashy reality show as the archer checked the strings on his bow or skimmed through schematics. Phil checking his collar in the hall mirror on his way to work, sitting on the floor polishing his shoes, and _oh God_ Phil, stumbling out of the bedroom with bed-head and sleep-crusted eyes.

There was a lifetime in his home, and Clint did not think he could bear it.

For the next few days, one Avenger or another was at his apartment with him, watching silently as he puttered around seeing ghosts. They fed him and made him take a shower, did his laundry and kept his cat alive. He was aware that they were there, but the closest he came to connecting with them was when he found out someone (Tony) had hacked into his computer and stopped the maid service from coming out to his apartment. All he managed was a somewhat hoarse "thanks," but he believed he would have killed the poor women if they showed up the next week with any more of Phil's favorites, the foods his refrigerator was never without.

It was on the fifth day of his catatonic mourning that Clint finally broke through the fog, or rather, Captain America punched through the fog around his head and made him face reality. He was awake, dressed and mindlessly watching Katniss Everdeen give a pig back some of its dignity when he became aware that Steve was sitting next to him. In Phil's spot, his mind noted, but he could not bring himself to care.

He barely even noticed when Steve shut off the television.

"Clint," Steve began slowly. "Clint, I'm so sorry. We didn't know until Natasha told us, and even then- well, we didn't know the extent. I'm so very sorry."

Clint found it in him to be mean. "Surprised that two fags can build a committed, monogamous relationship? Or is that too twenty-first century for you?"

Steve shot him an exasperated glare. "You know, I went to _art school_  in the thirties. We were liberated in ways that your generation can't comprehend."

Something about a man who was, in all and none of the ways that mattered, a good five or six years younger than him using the words _your generation_  struck Clint as funny, and if there was a touch of hysteria in his laughter Steve was kind enough not to mention it. "Yes, old man," he finally gasped, wiping a tear of what he would swear was laughter away.

Steve let him laugh but then, when he had calmed down, struck him where it hurt. "I was in love, you know, before I fell in the ice."

"The Cap's girl, Peggy Carter," Clint pulled from his memories of Phil's squeeing. "The one who spent decades looking for him, with Stark."

Steve closed his eyes. "Decades, God. And maybe it was for her, and for the rest of you who read about me on cards or in comic books, but it wasn't for me. It's just been a few weeks, and she's dead, and I'm learning to deal with that."

Clint's lips twisted. "I'm not so sure I can," he admitted.

"You don't get a choice. The world goes on, that's the cruelest part of all. And you can't go back and you can't just stop. The world won't let you."

"Then I don't want to," Clint said, suddenly angry.

Steve put a large hand on the back of Clint's head and held it against his own. "No, I guess you don't. Sometimes, I don't want to, either."

After that confession, he stayed in that position, holding Clint close, for the rest of the night. He talked about Peggy, and Bucky, about the father he had never known and the mother he buried young, and then the years in the orphanage. He talked about love and loss, and then, when Clint felt as if he had absorbed enough of the strength Steve had built through the fires of war and the hunger of the depression, the archer began to talk about his love for the no-nonsense SHIELD agent.

"He had my heart at 'make sure you get a good's night sleep before the mission,'" Clint cried and laughed into Steve's neck.

"I fell in love with her the first time I saw her with a gun in her hand," Steve blushed.

And then, when morning came and there were no more stories to tell and a thousand unfinished ones he could not bear to begin, Clint and Steve began the painful task of sorting through a life and deciding what memories to keep and what to give away.

Clint kept one suit, and gave the rest away to goodwill, knowing that plenty of people who needed jobs would snap them up. He kept all the cufflinks and Phil's extra pair of reading glasses, but gave away the ring Phil had proposed to him with on their anniversary for three years straight. He could not bear the reminder of what he had rejected, the pain he had caused Phil, because he had been stupid enough to think that their good-luck charm was not legalizing or formalizing their relationship.

And then, when he had packed up the last school T-shirt and sheets that smelled of the detergent Phil had liked, Clint picked up his cat named Snoopy and moved into Stark Towers, hoping that leaving the home he'd built with Phil would stop the ghosts from hurting as much as they had been since Loki's visit to Earth. It was a little better but not enough. Nothing would be enough, he slowly came to realize, except time. But all he had now was time, so that was fine.

*

Approximately three months and a day after Loki and Thor returned to Asgard, Phil Coulson opened his eyes and stared into wise eyes framed by russet curls and the sweetest smile he had ever seen. "What-?" he gasped.

Frigga smiled. "Do not fret, son of Coul. You are with friends."

 

THE END

 

 

 


End file.
